Fever
by Liimbo
Summary: Pair of drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

Kids get sniffles. Adults get colds. They're people. Amber's not people. She's sophisticated, frightening and one out of six billion. She's twenty-seven and seemed like she'd been born that way from the very beginning of time. But on that Saturday afternoon, as she opened the door, Hei could see she was definitely sick. Nose red. Cheeks flushed. Shoulders hunched. She leaned against the doorframe and the first thing she croaked at the sight of him was: "Shit. Anybody but you."

Hei guided her back to bed. Fed her acetaminophen, felt her forehead, took her temperature, raised his eyebrows at the result and helped her empty out a box of tissues as she blew her nose with wads for over a dozen times. He made porridge and held the spoon for her as she ate it. She kept him up for that night, coughing and hacking and sniffing loudly as he sat vigil in a stool in her room.

One time she got up, stumbled over to him and woke him up. "Not good," she moaned, shaking him weakly. _"Really not good."_

They just made it to the bathroom sink before she threw up the porridge. "Definitely not good," Hei agreed, holding her hair away from her face and rubbing her back as she shivered. When she was finished, he wiped her mouth clean and picked her up. She leaned her head into his shoulder and wouldn't loosen her arms from around his neck till he promised he wouldn't tell Bai about all this. She's twenty-seven but she could be such a child too.

Sunday was better. Her fever broke. Teeth chattering and hair mussed up and plastered to her cheeks, she sat up and clutched her blankets to herself and hissed at him when he brought the porridge again. She wanted green tea. She wanted runny egg over toast with bacon and cheese. She told him that she had never invited him in and that he should leave now. It was at this point that Hei remembered she was British and found out she wasn't a morning person. She told him with a haughty tone that 'bloody' porridge for breakfast was 'simply unacceptable,' turning her nose up at the sight of the watery cereal. He was steadfast. A staring contest followed in which she conceded. She growled bitter words under her breath as she viciously chewed, all the while shooting murderous glares at him as he watched. She refused to finish all of it. Hei didn't dare force-feed her the rest, so on this count he relented and stomped out with the half-empty bowl. She's twenty-seven but Hei was acutely reminded of his cranky grandmother. Without the angry Mandarin and wrinkles. He came back with a mystery novel he pinched from the oversized bookshelf in her living room. He sat himself down as Amber stared out the window with a distracted frown. He was five minutes into the story when she blurted out the spoilers. Then she pronounced out loud that Raymond Chandler was overrated and he should have picked something written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Hei asked her as to why she kept the book then. She opened her mouth to retort, flushed when she realized she had nothing to counter that, and retreated into a sullen silence.

He went to use her shower. He found the taps dubious. No matter how he turned them the water was scalding or freezing. Eventually he got it. Then Amber crept in and flushed the toilet.

She apologized to him at lunchtime when he brought the tea in on a tray. Sincerely but not shamefully. She made a face when he brought the soup in next but took it grudgingly when he said it was supposed to kill the rest of the germs. She asked him to grab a certain book to read out to her as she ate. It was something about a lion, a witch and a wardrobe. She said she had liked it as a child. Hei thought it boring and made good material to fall asleep to. He feigned enthusiasm and pulled it off anyway. Those bedtime stories with Bai must have helped. Amber was nodding to herself as he left to put the dishes in the sink and refill her cup.

On the way back with more tea, he looked at the bookshelf again. Carefully this time. Ageless masterpieces rubbed hardcovers with pulp fiction paperbacks, children's Dr. Seuss with high school Shakespeare, sappy poetry collections with erotica. Many with long-forgotten bookmarks in them. Others with numerous pages folded and crinkled. Hei imagined Amber softly running her finger down their spines as she walked along the room, knowing them by reminiscence rather than sight, unable to help but sniff at the smell of paper gone yellow with age.

Amber watched him from the hallway, barefoot and leaning an elbow against the wall. She looked over his shoulder. "Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Third row. Eighth from the left. Right next to Mao's Little Red Book." She shrugged with a faint smile on her face. "Heavy stuff. I used to be more concerned about how his moustache looks, rather than what he wrote, back in college. Didn't help that our professor was a pedantic bore.' She waved a hand. 'Then I started to believe he was onto something. Picked a fight with the minister at my local church one Sunday. He called me a blasphemer and a devil and kicked me out. I never returned, even when my Mother tried to convince me otherwise. There was this one time when I pretended to get my hand burnt by a cross necklace. Father came out, asking what had happened. Then he picked it up and did the exact same thing. Mother was horrified. She wouldn't speak to us for the rest of the day." She smirked to herself. "Good times. You found something you like?" Hei shook his head. "First row. Second from the right. It's got a monkey holding a staff on the front. Can't miss it."

Hei frowned when he found it. He knew it but didn't care much for it. A thought struck him. "Do you have anything by Jane Austen?"

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Someone told me it's really good."

Amber blinked. "I…it's…not really something I think you'll like," she stuttered, fumbling for the words for the first time since he's known her.

"I'm sure I'll like it if you were to read it to me."

Amber stared at him, mouth open. She looked away, brow furrowed in thought. "Well-" She bit her lip and cleared her throat. "I suppose I could try."

"She's one of your favorites, right?"

"It used to be. Back in private school when I would read Pride and Prejudice under the table for the second time when the teacher wasn't-" Her eyes suddenly narrowed as she caught on. "Ah, I see how it is," she remarked.

"Is that a yes?"

She chuckled, amused and happy. "Very well then. Get yourself a cup while I find it."

She's twenty-seven, but as their tea went cold and Hei listened to her recite the book, he could see the years fall away from her like autumn leaves from an oak tree, as she grew more enraptured with her own voice than he was. Sitting by her bedside and watching her in the afternoon light, he could see the young girl behind the woman before him, and like an artist would add lines and shading with a charcoal to a sketch he drew with soft strokes of pencil from a surreal dream, Hei filled in the blanks, working with how he felt about her more so than what he knew about her.

Amber closed the book and set it on her knee. She put her chin on her hand. "Is there something on my face?"

"Did you plan all this? Did you know I was going to come here and that we would do all this?"

She closed her eyes and made a low sound in her throat that could have been either yes or no. "Would it really matter, Hei? Would you believe me if I told you that there are some futures that even I can't see, or at the very least, I try not to see? Besides, when was the last time you've ever felt this domestic?"

"Quite a while."

"It's a nice feeling, isn't it?"

"It certainly is."

"Wouldn't matter if I manipulated you into it."

"I suppose not."

Amber held her arms up. She beckoned meaningfully.

"You're still sick."

She grimaced. "I'm not. I'm cold."

"Do you have a heater?"

"Yes."

"I'll go turn it on."

"It's broken."

"I'll fix it."

"Hei…"

"Yes?"

"I'm serious."

"Me too."

" _Hei!'_

"Yes?"

Now she was scowling. "Teasing is teasing, but there comes a point in time where a girl wants to hear one thing in particular and under no circumstances is willing to ask for it. What we have here is a particular example and you're only getting one chance at it. Now, are you going to come to a decision, preferably before my arms go sore?"

Hei hugged her and whispered it into her ear.

"Good," she replied with a nod, tightening her arms around his neck. "Smart man."


	2. Chapter 2

They say airport reunions are the best. They always forget about the waiting. The nerve-racking, painfully drawn out waiting.

Amber paced to and fro outside the gates. Around her strode families and friends. Hundreds and hundreds of sneakers, boots and high heels and slippers and luggage wheels clicked and tapped and skidded on the floor and in the background to form a chaotic and yet harmonic din. There were folks visiting their relatives to catch up and spend time with, students on semester break hoping to let down their hair now that exams were over, and couples on their honeymoon to kickstart the next stage of their lives with some exhilarating memories. Some arriving. Others leaving. More than a few smiling. The announcer called for the next people to make their way through the terminal gates as their flight was now ready to disembark. Reminded them to have their tickets ready and that they shouldn't have any baggage on hand that was meant to be taken up by staff to the plane's cargo hold.

She checked her watch, checked her phone and checked the crowd. He's still not here, still hasn't called, but there's still time. Maybe she's too early? No. She was punctual enough. So what's taking him so long? She was tempted to look forward into the future, but she told herself that that was a waste of her Remuneration. Of course he's coming. He's not the type to back out of things like this. Not without at least giving her a call first. Amber glanced around, noting the cursory glances she was getting. She stopped pacing and sat down at some nearby seats. She knew what she looked like to them. Anxious. On edge. The poor young lady being stood up by her boyfriend. Happened all the time. She realized she was tapping her foot. She stopped it.

Nonsense, he doesn't back out. Period. If there's anything she knew about him, it was that he saw things through to the end. Like a mule. She respected that. She could be like that too. Reason why they were meeting up like this. People like them don't give up easily and especially not on what they both have. This 'us' thing was very complicated, very fragile, but worth preserving. She won't hurt it by peering into the future like some Peeping Tom. She trusted him. Trust was the foundation of every relationship. No trust and the relationship would crumble, topple and crash, and neither of them wanted that right? Right.

Her foot started tapping again. She glanced at it. It stopped. She looked away. It started again. Bloody hell. To give it something else to do, she stood up and resumed pacing. Maybe she should give him a call. No. Wait. he might still be on his flight. They took different flights because they didn't want to be followed. He won't get reception high up there in the clouds. Also kept his phone off as instructed by airline regulations. Such a Boy Scout. She took her phone out again. Nope. He still hasn't called. Was it possible that he'd been compromised? Was his plane currently a wreckage somewhere out in the ocean, he nothing but food for the sharks? She searched the news, frowning as she looked over the headlines. No. Nothing like that: falling stock market prices, celebrities convicted for drug abuse, rising international tensions over petty territorial disputes and political posturing, but he was safe, safe from engine malfunctions and terrorist plots and the Syndicate, but at this rate, not from him. She rubbed her brow and scratched her head. Why hadn't she asked him what flight he was catching beforehand? Silly Amber. So excited for this that she forgot important details. Never forget important details.

The lofty ceiling was made of glass. Looking up, she could see the planes soaring overhead to land on the tarmac of the airstrip outside. The announcer started speaking again, telling new arrivals where to go to claim their baggage and where to go to meet anyone waiting for them. Amber looked to where they would come from. Looked around where other people waited for their significant others and whatnot. Some people held signs so others could find them. Signs were for the desperate, the apprehensive. While she was in first class, a hostess had asked her if she had seen Amber on the TV. It wasn't surprising that somebody would ask her that, what with her dark shades and designer clothes and that certain magnetism that belonged to the famous. She wasn't, but she looked the part of someone ready to walk down the red carpet, and that sure didn't mean carrying a sign to tell the world who she was when she expected people to know who she was. Especially him. He didn't need her to hold up a sign.

As if on cue, new arrivals were approaching her and the rest of the crowd outside the gates. She stood up and searched their faces, hoping and dreading and hoping as she looked for him. People walked side by side with her, and they found the ones they were looking for and hurried over to embrace them. Greetings were given. Boyfriends hoisted girlfriends up into the air and spun them around and kissed them. Grandparents exclaimed at how their grandchildren have grown. Friends shook hands and fist bumped. Amber craned her neck to lift her head up above the crowd as she frantically turned around and around and around.

Maybe she should have held up a sign. Signs are useful. Roads used signs, shops used signs. So what if it felt tacky?

People began to leave. She didn't. She watched and waited to see if one more person would come out of the gates. She didn't check her watch. She didn't take out her phone. The airport clock on the wall said he was late. Her phone had the vibrate setting on and the sound set for incoming calls, so if there'd been one, it'd be ringing.

She started pacing again, her mind inventing up more excuses for him. Maybe he caught the wrong plane? No, not him. Always a first time, though. He would have called her to let her know, though. Maybe he didn't have her number? Stupid, he definitely had her number. She gave it to him. Perhaps he forgot? Amber paced and paced, resisting the urge to gnash her teeth like a child. Where is he, she thought savagely. Where is he, where is he, where is he, where is-

"Miss me?"

Amber turned around, and there he was. Smiling pleasantly. Wearing a suit. A bit overdue for a haircut. Within punching distance. Hugging distance. Kissing distance. She gawked at him till his smile became uncertain. "What took you so long?" She finally squeaked out.

Hei's eyes widened as she lunged at him and plowed right into him. He caught her, toppled back, and as they hit the floor together Amber's hair fell over his face. It smelt of clean soap and it tickled. He quickly sat up and apologized as she apologized, what for he and she didn't know, and before he knew it she was laughing and he was laughing and everyone was looking at them like they had just lost their minds.

But Amber and Hei didn't mind. They only had eyes for each other.


End file.
